movies: epic

I actually can't remember the last time I fell in love with the visual style of an animated movie the way I fell in love with Epic.

Sure, there have been movies where I've been wowed by the animation, and yes, Epic is gorgeous from that standpoint, but it was more than that... it was all the character designs and the armour and the backgrounds and everything about the way this movie looks that hooked me in.

The story isn't anything particularly groundbreaking... it's FernGully and it's Arthur and his Invisibles and it's any of those movies where a human is transformed to help restore the balance of nature.

But in this instance it's done quite well, with a lighter touch to the underlying messages than some of those movies generally use and some genuine surprises. Although I will admit that the overall story feels a little darker than a regular animated movie.

Add to that characters who were more three dimensional (and, for the record, that isn't due to the fact the movie has a 3D version, since we saw it in 2D) and a voice cast that really puts personality into the characters.

It's not a perfect movie... as I said, for the most part the plot is a little thin and I really could have done without the comic relief slug and snail as they very definitely fall into the "crazy animal sidekick" category.

But the things I enjoyed about the movie more than made up for it's problems.